Many animals, including humans, have stereo vision and can perceive the depth of space through the difference in the images seen by the two eyes. The mechanism behind stereo vision has always been a topic of interest to scientists, but before that, most stereo vision research has focused on vertebrates, and no one has set foot in the insect world. hardly. This is not because the visual system of insects is not worth studying, or because of the lack of three-dimensionality, but because of the lack of appropriate research methods.
Now, researchers are closing this gap. They designed special 3D glasses for the praying mantis and proved that they can use this method for stereo observation.
The key to the study of stereo vision is to allow animals’ eyes to see different images. In today’s movie theaters, the most common 3D glasses are a pair of polarizers whose transmission directions are perpendicular to each other. These polarizers only pass the part of the light we need to see, so the overlapping image is a three-dimensional image. However, the researchers found that polarized 3D glasses are not effective against the praying mantis. Instead, the researchers turned to stained glass, which is a more nostalgic solution. Human chromatic aberration glasses are usually red and blue lenses, but the color tone is a bit strange, but it can also produce three-dimensional effects. However, the mantis's ability to recognize red light is poor, so the researchers replaced the lens with blue and green. After trimming the colored lenses, the researchers used beeswax as a "nose pad" and pasted two mini glasses on the front of the mantis.
Next, let us verify the effect of Mantis 3D glasses. The researchers took blue and green images on the screen and controlled the position of the images so that they appeared to be floating about 2.5 cm in front of the praying mantis when forming a 3D image. The results showed that the praying mantis performed as expected. When faced with a 3D image that looked "close to the eye", they did not react further to the 2D image on the screen, did not wear glasses, and did not shake their forelimbs. Gives more answers.
So people now have a good way to study the three-dimensional perception of insects, but what's the point? Professor Jenny Reid, who led the research, said that the study of insect stereo vision can help us better understand the generation and evolution of stereo vision, and can also find new algorithms for computer depth perception.